LOBANOV-ROSTOVSKI, ALEXIS BORISOVICH, PRINCE (1824-1896), Russian statesman, was born on Dec. 3o, 1824, and educated at the lyceum of Tsarskoe Selo. At the age of twenty he entered the diplomatic service, and became minister at Constantinople in 1859. In 1863 a private scandal compelled his retirement, but he re-entered the service in 1867, and served for ten years as adlatus to the minister of the interior. At the close of the Russo-Turkish war in 1878 he was sent as ambassa dor to Constantinople, where he was charged with the re-establish ment of tranquillity, after the disturbances produced by the reck less action of his predecessor, Count Ignatiev. In 1879 he was transferred to London, and in 1882 to Vienna ; and in March 1895 he succeeded de Giers as foreign minister. In this position he showed much of the caution of de Giers, but adopted a more energetic policy in European affairs generally. Russian influence in the Balkan Peninsula suddenly revived. Serbia received finan cial assistance; a consignment of arms was sent openly from St. Petersburg to the prince of Montenegro ; Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria became ostensibly reconciled with the Russian em peror, and his son Boris was received into the Eastern Orthodox Church; the Russian embassy at Constantinople tried to bring about a reconciliation between the Bulgarian exarch and the oecumenical patriarch; Bulgarians and Serbians professed, at the bidding of Russia, to lay aside their mutual hostility. All
this seemed to foreshadow the creation of a Balkan confederation hostile to Turkey; in reality Lobanov was merely trying to estab lish a strong Russian hegemony among these nationalities, and he did not desire a new crisis in the Eastern Question until such time as Russia could act independently of foreign powers. Accord ingly, when Lord Salisbury proposed energetic action to pro tect the Armenians, the cabinet of St. Petersburg suddenly assumed the role of protector of the sultan and vetoed the pro posal. At the same time efforts were made to weaken the Triple Alliance, the principal instrument employed being the entente with France, which Prince Lobanov helped to convert into a formal alliance. In the Far East he became the protector of China. Japan was compelled to give up her conquests on the Chinese mainland, so as not to interfere with the future action of Russia in Manchuria. Lobanov died on Aug. 3o, 1896.